For me, it usually involves neck cramps and teeny tiny pieces of wrapping paper and teeny tiny pieces of tape and why do we wrap them anyway if they get stuffed in a stocking? I guess some people don’t, but since this is how we roll, I have come up with a solution.

Reusable stocking stuffer bags.

Yes. This idea might not help you now, with only, what four days until Christmas? But after Christmas, get thee to your nearest fabric store and buy up the holiday fabric at a nifty 75% off. I think Jo-Ann’s Fabrics still had Christmas fabric marked down in June. And pick up some clearance holiday ribbon as well.

If you can get enough different fabric prints, you might even be able to make enough bags that each person in the family gets an individualized print for his or her stocking. Then you can just stuff all Z’s stocking stuffers into the Hello Kitty bags, give Homes the manly holly, and there’s no need for name tags even! Yes! Brilliant!

I even made long skinny bags for toothbrushes! Doubly brilliant!

Caveat: this idea works better if you don’t foolishly hope, for the better part of the year, that the stocking stuffer bags will make themselves. Because I am wiser and more experienced in this craft, I can assure you: they won’t. So now I am madly sewing stocking stuffer bags. And while I sew, Z is very, very quiet in her bedroom.

And then, I finally notice how quiet it is, so I get up to check on her, and find her room looking like this:

After I make threats and cry, I take a look around her room and realize that at least 64.4% of the things strewn about were stocking stuffers from last year. So I might just take her stocking stuffer bags and stuff them. In the garbage can.

You know I won’t. But I gotta admit, it’s a tempting idea.

I won’t be updating the blog over the next week so that I can focus on sewing more stocking stuffer bags spending time with family. Happy Holidays, everyone!

The set-up: Dash finds a red notebook in the shelves of his favorite used bookstore. Inside Lily (or her brother and his boyfriend) has written a series of challenges intended to weed out unworthy suitors. Instead of putting the book back after he has proved himself worthy, Dash keeps it, writes down more challenges, and gets the book back to Lily.

Main characters’ goals: Two main characters. Dash’s goal is to meet and fall in love with Lily…well, he’s half in love with her already after reading her challenges in the notebook. Lily’s goal is to have a merry Christmas, and to live up to the girl she has become in the notebook (a slightly added challenge because the notebook version of herself is more daring, more opinionated…just more).

My reaction: Dash is a bit of a pretentious ass, but he has vulnerabilities, too, so he’s still sympathetic. While his delight in words and language is not unbelievable, he doesn’t sound like your average teenager. Lily is also above-average intelligent, but I sympathized with her more. Is it a girl thing? I have no idea. I liked Dash, I really did. I loved that the thing he wants more than any other worldy possession is the complete Oxford English Dictionary. But Lily, she’s awesome.

Also, it’s a little bizarre to read a Christmas story when the outside temperature is pushing 100 degrees.

Of interest to writers: I was just reading on Maggie’s blog that in order to collaborate with another writer, you have to work well together…which I take to also mean, you have to like the person. This is Cohn’s and Levithan’s third collaborative YA book (they wrote the turned-into-a-movie Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist, as well as Naomi and Eli’s No Kiss List). I heart all of my writer friends, I truly do, but I don’t think I could collaborate on a whole novel.

Bottom line: It’s quirky and funny (the mall Santa who makes Dash molest him is my favorite highlight), and kept up my hope in the world.

Instead of a book review, I have to do something festive. Okay, and this post was supposed to be for Christmas Eve, but I never got around to posting it. But really, if I’d posted it on Christmas Eve, I wouldn’t have known that the last one was actually true! And in the original version, it was “purple,” not “lovely.” Since it isn’t purple, I’m glad I had time to change it.

Let’s take this from day twelve to avoid the repetition that is the hallmark of this song.

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…

Twelve pens of red ink,

Eleven pristine notebooks,

Ten packs of Post-Its,

Nine friends a’reading,

Eight cups a’brewing,

Seven books on writing,

Six story boards,

FIVE PAPER REAMS!

Four babysitters,

Three critique groups,

Two conferences,

And a lovely laptop just for me!

This list is slightly exaggerated, but even then, I am spoiled blessed.

“If you don’t put another bead on that ornament, I’m taking the beads away!”

Nothing like threats to really foster that Christmas spirit. To my credit, she asks to do the craft

Zs Homemade Orna-na-ments

project. “Oh!” she says. “I want to make another orna-na-ment.” To her credit, she’s two. After threading five or six pony beads on a pipe cleaner, she’s ready to move on to lining up rubber duckies or arranging an elaborate dinner for her stuffed gecko.

To my credit, I have festive Christmas music playing in the background. To her credit, yesterday was the first clear day after a handful of rainy ones, and sitting still didn’t sound fun.

To my credit, I’m aiming for Christmas to be about giving, not just receiving…even though I’ve dropped countless hints about the Laptop O’ Dreams. To Z’s credit, I don’t think she quite understands the concept of a Christmas deadline (after all, she doesn’t have an email inbox full of reminders and coupons ominously counting down to the Big Day).

To the relief of both of us, we can always take a break from beading. There are all sorts of additional holiday tasks readily adaptable to a two-year-old’s capabilities and temperament. So far I’ve had her put stickers on the Christmas card envelopes, sweep fallen needles from under the Christmas tree, and help with house cleaning before family comes. Soon she’ll be stirring dough for Christmas cookies and helping me wrap presents!

The best part of this is: these Christmas “chores” are fun anyway, and they’re even more fun when I view them through the eyes of my daughter.